This Thanksgiving Weekend, Make A Gratitude Journal

I love journals. I’ve written about my love of journals. I have doodle journals and writing journals, and I even have my first ever journal, a gift from my sister Bobbi, who got it for me as part of a Scholastic book order she made for her new class. She gave it to me about the time she started teaching: 1974. I was 13 years old, a newly minted teen, and my journal (it was actually more of a diary, although I’m not sure what the difference is) was the perfect place to log news of piddly babysitting jobs (for which it was not uncommon to make 75 cents!), swim lessons, and crushes. That early journal got me believing that any life—even one so boring as my own—was worth recording.

That’s the beauty of the journal. That it might collect the ordinary and occasional extraordinary goings-on of your existence. And that someday you might look back on it as one experiences the family photo album. Memory, insight, a looking glass into your world, or at least a snippet of it.

So it is not surprising that I’ve recently discovered the joy of making journal art. I’m not sure what else to call it. I take blank journals—the basic Moleskine works great—then figure out designs to create on the covers. It’s a fun project, one that can easily be done over a long holiday weekend.

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To make the Lotería Journal, which I fashioned after the Mexican Lotería cards, I used the following items:

Moleskine or other journal – I like the Moleskine brand, but it is a bit pricey. Any simple journal will do; for this project it’s best to stay away from leather or cloth covers.

Gesso – to apply to the cover so that you can color or paint the cover (the gesso acts both as a whitening agent to better absorb and reflect light in color, as well as a primer so that whatever you apply bonds well to the surface).

Evenly sized images – for this journal I used my own, but you could cut images out of magazines or tear out cool papers and draw different designs on each one.

Mod Podge – to glue the images to the Moleskine cover, and later, once the piece is completely done, I’ll paint the entire cover with Mod Podge to seal the design and give it a glossy finish.

Paints and wax crayons – to add color.

A black pen, preferably permanent, but if you use an impermanent one, just make sure it is completely dry, and when you do your final paint with Mod Podge, do a quick brush; don’t go back and forth or linger else the black ink will smudge.

Brushes – a one-inch one for the Mod Podge and a small one for my paints (both of which I keep in water while I’m not using them).

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And given that we are in the Thanksgiving season, I can’t think of a better use of a lovingly created journal than to transform it into a Gratitude Journal. Now, folks out there may practice daily Gratitude, but for my part, this is an area that I’d like to improve. I want to spend more time giving thanks for what I have and less time wanting whatever it is I don’t have.

A Gratitude Journal can take several forms. One idea is to use it as a way to say Thank-You to someone in your life. My sister Janet once created this type of Gratitude Journal for me, although we didn’t call it that back then. But now as I think about it, that’s exactly what it was.

About thirteen years ago I organized a trip to Spain for my dad, Janet, another sister, and my sister-in-law. The five of us spent two weeks traveling all over the country, staying in unique and at times quirky places. An olive-farm-turned-bed-and-breakfast, a renovated monastery, and a former brothel, for example. We had a wonderful time, and afterward Janet made me a journal as a memento of our experience. Handmade paper adorned the front and back covers, and inside on a long single sheet of paper that she folded like an accordion, she made a collage of different scenes from the trip.

You could create a Gratitude Journal and inside turn it into a personalized Thank You to someone close to you. I know I often pull out the journal my sister made for me. It’s so much richer than a Thank You card.
A Gratitude Journal could also be something you keep for yourself over a certain period of time—say, the upcoming year—to help practice gratitude in your life. There are a lot of ways you can do this. For example, each day you could think about what it is you’re grateful for and then write about that particular topic. Or make a doodle about it, or do a collage on that page.

QuoinMonkey wrote a post at the end of 2007 titled Feelin’ Down For The Holidays? Make A Gratitude List. She made her list at the end of the year, as has been a tradition of hers for several years now. Here you can see her Gratitude List from 2007 looking forward to 2008, along with mine. And here are QM’s Gratitude Lists from 2009 and 2010. You could follow QM’s example and dedicate a sheet of paper to each letter of the alphabet and see what flows onto the page.

Or maybe your Gratitude Journal project is more about simply focusing this weekend on creating a beautiful cover for your journal. Maybe that in itself is the act of Gratitude, giving Thanks by allowing yourself to spend a few hours making art.
And speaking of giving Thanks, QM and I are immensely grateful for the community and inspiration we’ve received over the years from working together and from all of you.

17 Responses

Lovely, Roma!!! I’m grateful for you, QM & red Ravine.🙂 Was just reading a passage the other day that said something like: ‘Gratitude & acceptance are the magic tricks that make everything in my life, more.” Grat’s where’s it’s at! Happy Thanksgiving.

I am happy for this reminder and inspiration as we head into the holiday season. Nearly every day (during the next six weeks or so), I want to live consciously…keeping track of what I’m grateful for…who to appreciate…the gifts in my life.

From the 1920s to 1960 when he died, my great-grandfather, John P. Nelson kept a scrapbook of newspaper clippings and photographs with a diary in a column on the outside edge of the pages. He was a proud, formal man and his diary was very formal, always referring to himself in the third person and everyone was referred to as Mr and Mrs. This included his wife Dora, my great-grandmother, except for one underlined entry, “Ma died today”. He loved technology. He’d have been ahellofa blogger.

My cousin has the book now. Thanks for reminding me. I have to get it scanned soon.

I knew I would feel a sense of elevation by looking at redravine. I am grateful to have found you all and look forward to another year of expressing gratitude for the world, beauty, truth and love through language and community. Today, I’m also very grateful for an enchanted snowy landscape (unusual for the rainy northwest).

Bless and thank you, ybonsey, for such a beautiful and colorful reminder of gratitude. I seem to know many people, some old, some middle aged (MY age,) who did not make it to see this holiday, or for whom this may be their last Thanksgiving. I find that I am ever-so-grateful to still be walking the face of the planet and still able to give my kids, family and friends a hug.

Much love & thanks to QM, ybonsey and to all the clever bloggers at red Ravine!

Beautiful, ybonesy. And Happy Thanksgiving to you and all of our red Ravine readers. I feel like I have so much to be thankful for this year, I don’t even know where to start. I’m thankful for our collaboration on red Ravine. And to our readers and community who make it what it is.

I love your journals, ybonesy. I decided a few months ago to do a journal practice for my annual practice in 2011. I was inspired by re-reading Journal of a Solitude by May Sarton. Then reading her journals and biographies from her later years when she was in her 80’s. Your journals are inspiring works of art.

I’m looking forward to doing my gratitude list this year. It’s a good idea to make it a yearly journal. Maybe I’ll tack on to my daily entry at least one thing I’m thankful for each day in 2011.

Off to dinner. We are still cooking for two here. I had a big Thanksgiving dinner with my family in Pennsylvania a few weeks ago. It was a great gift. So Liz and I are having a small one today. The cooking and baking continues!

Happy Thanksgiving to you, too, QM! And thank you for the lovely and moving comments, everyone! I told my husband this morning that I am especially thankful for him, that he survived a big scare this year.

As I drove back from picking up Gluten-free pie shells from Whole Foods this morning, an ambulance came barreling down the main road that you take to get to our house. For about 4 minutes I was clenched with fear, remembering the day that Jim collapsed on the bed clutching his heart. I am so grateful that the ambulance didn’t turn down our road, but I was also struck by the fact that people out there deal every day with tragedy in their lives. The impermanence of it all. Our daily struggle to come to terms with. I am grateful for this particular community of friends and strangers who live that struggle so gracefully and act as role models for me.

QM, I was up until the wee hours this morning trying to finish this post, and I realize I missed some good related posts. I added one you did just now. If there are other posts of ours on Journals and/or Gratitude, please let me know and I will add those as well.

ybonesy, Jim had quite a scare this year. So much to be grateful for. I feel the same about my brother’s liver transplant. He and the donor family are at the top of my gratitude list. I often think of that, too, how every day someone out there is dealing with a tragedy in their lives.

I’m working on my gratitude list this weekend. This post is inspiring. And thanks for adding the links to all the past Gratitude Lists we’ve done on red Ravine. And that last one on Providence, Old Journals, and Thoreau — wow, I had not read that one in quite some time. Takes me back.

It probably could have been about 3 posts! I liked going back and revisiting the journals I discovered at that time. My journals from art school. I was doing art every single day for that time period. Lived and breathed it. And it shows in my work and the journals I kept then. I feel gratitude for the opportunity to revisit the past. I find a lot of inspiration there. Sometimes I can tug it along into the present when I might not be feeling as inspired!

[…] At times when there is the least light, we need to find ways to tap the most Joy. But where? The small things. Sunrise, Tuesday morning. Snowstorm, Friday night. Digging out. Digging deep. An old recipe. A new flame. Joy takes many forms. Clay dangling from red string. One new liver. Two hibernating black bears. Three things I am grateful for. […]

[…] be returned. It’s a lesson in letting go. One recent addition to our art materials (thanks to ybonesy’s detailed post on journals) are the Caran D’Ache NeoColor II Swiss Made crayons. I like mixing them with oil pastels. […]